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Neda Soltani: Student & Symbol (And Why She Ought To Be Both)
New York, 11:44 AM
Tue Dec 8
74 posts in the last 24 hours
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Neda Soltani: Student & Symbol (And Why She Ought To Be Both) |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
06/24/09
If someone in power does not want us to see something, I think that makes it all the more imperative that we do see it.
06/23/09
Has anyone heard of this? Does it sound plausible?
06/23/09
06/23/09
As Megan has so wonderfully composed here, this woman was interested, not in parties or platitudes, but in freedom for herself and her country. She was not seeking to be famous in any way, alive or dead. She merely wanted a better life, a life unencumbered by the fear and fanaticism generated be the Iranian government. Her death, regrettable, final, disturbing, is both a warning that the Iranian government is so desperate to hold onto power, that they will treat protesters as cannon fodder, and a rallying point, to show that freedom bears a heavy price, but it is worth the sacrifice.
Watch it, or don't, but the importance of this video cannot be minimized. The situation in Iran is not about "those people over there," but about all of us, all of us who desire freedom: freedom to play, to worship, to work, to live. The situation in Iran right now is the potential birth of new democracy, in the shadow of totalitarianism. We should admire it, we should support it, and more importantly, we should not look away. What happens there, stands to change our world in ways we cannot foresee.
06/23/09
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06/23/09
And second, the primary consumers and distributors of the horrifying death footage of Ms. Agha-Soltan haven't been Americans, but Iranians at home and in the diaspora. I saw those pictures pop up on the Facebook pages of Iranian-American friends long before they became the subject of furrowed-brow editorials in American newspapers. And to take those images being circulated by people from a culture with very specific ideas about martyrdom and the imagery surrounding violent death and map onto them Western (or specifically liberal-lefty identity politics American) notions about the propriety of seeing them is simply indulging in shallow ethnocentrism.
Or, put more simply: you may be uncomfortable with the widespread circulation of those pictures and videos of a dying young woman, but at the end of the day, it's not about you.
06/23/09
Also, have you given any thought to the definition of white that Tami was using? I think you will find that her characterization of Neda as non-white makes a lot of sense, if you are familiar with the ways in which white does not simply equal Caucasian?
06/23/09
06/23/09
Americans and westerners in general tend to have a very different perception of death than people in other regions and cultures. We fear it, we censor it and we talk about it in hushed tones. Westerners also do not usually hold martyrdom in as high regard as the Iranians do - they are less likely to use a graphic death photo to further a cause. There are, of course, some exceptions such as the famous image from Oklahoma City of the firefighter cradling a dead (white) infant.
Another example of this is the "falling man" from the World Trade Center. I've heard of many soldiers citing that image as a reason that they enlisted.
As for whether Neda is white or not, it is irrelevant. She was presumably murdered in cold blood. Isn't that what we should be focusing on? Is it necessary or even helpful to make this into a discussion about race? People are dying in Iran to have their voices heard and the government is murdering its own citizens - that should be the primary focus when we talk about Neda.
Racialicious has made a lot of interesting, important points and observations in the past, but in this case it just comes across as an attempt to locate racial controversy in an unrelated tragedy.
06/23/09
06/23/09
I think that there's a fine line between showing graphic imagery for a cause, and using those graphic images for profit. After a certain point, we felt that we didn't need to see more WTC images, because the point had been made, and further showing of those images felt like we were exploiting them.
Are we exploiting the image of Neda? Possibly. I know quite a number of people (unfortunately) who are watching the film because of the gruesome factor.
And what about that sad couple whose daughter died in the porsche? Jezebel posted something on that, where the cop leaked photos of her terrible car accident and fatal injuries on the net, and her parents would like it stopped. At what point do we cross the line?
The line is thin. I remember visiting a Holocaust museum, like Yad Vashem, with plenty of graphic images of corpses and death. And there were several with images of naked people, waiting to be shot by a rifle squad. I looked away. We may need to have gruesome images to have an event hit home, but we don't have to deny these human beings their dignity. Some would even argue that any of these photos are awful, and I don't blame them. Death is painful and seems to rob everyone of dignity.
06/23/09
06/24/09
06/24/09
I am well aware that death and violence happens every day in our world, and has happened throughout our history. You use an example of the Holocaust, but I'll use an example of lynchings in the South. I knew they happened, I knew they were fucked up, but until I saw a photo of a dead black man swinging from a tree while a group of white people practically held a party below, I didn't realize the full levels of depravity inherent in what was going on.
06/23/09
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06/23/09
We've been paying a lot of attention to this. It's hard not to.
06/23/09
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06/23/09
Real violence is utterly horrific and I've never seen it approached on fictional film (except maybe the bull in Eisenstein's The Strike, as that was real). Thankfully, I've only seen it on documentaries or clips like Neda's. Real violence has an utterly casual, factual nature to it; and that might be what's most disturbing. Well, that and the eyes.
Desensitized to sensational film violence, sure, but I can't imagine who is desensitized to real violence. It is possible people are confusing a calm clinical reaction to real violence as 'desensitized' because they've never been in a situation where the stakes are so high your body/brain finds that route to cope.